Trinidad Nitrogen Company Limited (Tringen) says a 19 per cent decline in sales revenue last year was the result of a decline in global ammonia prices and sales volume.The company's audited financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2013, show that sales revenues were lower than the previous year by $535 million. In addition, production was below budget by 18 per cent due to the extended Tringen II Turnaround (TAR), unscheduled production plant outages and loss of production due to natural gas supply curtailments.
Chairman Carl Chatoor said the extended Tringen II TAR was partly due to delays in equipment deliveries, unforeseen repairs and the effect of 11 concurrent TARS at Point Lisas in September 2013 which resulted in a shortage of contractor services to the industrial estate."This was planned to coincide with a major natural gas curtailment due to necessary upstream maintenance," he said.
Chatoor said cost of products sold and operating expenses were $203 million–11 per cent lower than in 2012–due mainly to lower sales volumes and raw material cost."As a result, the net income before taxes for the year ended December 31, 2013, was $586.6 million compared to $924.2 million in the previous year, a decrease of $337.6 million or 37 per cent."
Chatoor advised shareholders that dividends for 2012, 2013 and 2014 would be reduced as Tringen's Plant Energy Efficiency Improvement Project (EEIP), which is budgeted to cost US$66.5 million, will be funded internally.Tringen is a limited liability company owned by National Enterprises Limited (NEL) and Yara Caribbean (2002) Limited.
For the period 2011-2013, Tringen contributed an average of 54 per cent of NEL's share of profits from its investee companies and an average of 54 per cent of NEL's dividends paid.